2 Sep
2011
2 Sep
'11
4:53 p.m.
On 02/09/11 10:44 AM, John Foust wrote:
At 01:47 AM 9/2/2011, Dave McGuire wrote:
> If the "flattened" image isn't present in a particular PSD file (is it
possible for it not to be?)
Amusingly, no, the format has no way to indicate its omission, so if you
don't choose "Maximise Compatibility" when saving, Photoshop saves a
dummy flattened image that says "Nothing to see here, move along" in
English, Japanese, German and French.
is it at all possible to "get there from
here", as it were?
No, and that's the point he was making. A PhotoShop file probably contains
bitmaps, but it also contains all sorts of other info (Bezier paths, masks,
There is a complex PDF-based format for text objects. Layer effects.
Adjustments. 3D objects (!!). It's hard even to keep up with the bells
and whistles that each version of Photoshop adds; I stopped using it
professionally in 2004. The only complete behavioural reference is the
code itself (just like MSOOXML)... and we're not allowed to see that. :)
who knows what) that is feed-stock for proprietary
Adobe code in
PhotoShop,
or maybe for third-party plug-ins you own. You call
it lock-in, someone
else calls it twenty years of refined algorithms.
The algorithms aren't necessarily very fancy (for example, glow and
shadow effects), but even so, reverse engineering them would be
excessively difficult.
--Toby
- John